Businessman.
Born in Nova Scotia on 11 February 1863, he came to Manitoba and worked as a salesman for a stock insurance company. While traveling in western Manitoba in 1895, he discussed with Charles Kerr, a Souris accountant, the idea of forming a mutual insurance company designed specifically to insure highly combustible wooden threshing machines owned by farmers. Kempton convinced twenty farmers from the vicinity of Wawanesa to invest twenty dollars each and, in September 1896, the Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company was established. He and wife Samantha Preston (1872-1952) had seven children: Walter Winchell Kempton (1890-1956), Laura Maud Kempton (1891-?, wife of Ernest J. Thornber), Vernie Lucretia Kempton (1895-1935), Helen Gertrude Kempton (1898-1898), Richard Nelson Kempton (1904-1915), Helen Gertrude Kempton (1905-?), and John Freeman Kempton (1911-1929). He died at Vernon, British Columbia on 28 June 1939 and was buried there. He is commemorated by a bronze bust in Wawanesa.
See also:
MHS Centennial Business: Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company
Birth and death registrations, Manitoba Vital Statistics.
1901 and 1911 Canada censes, Automated Genealogy.
Death registrations, British Columbia Vital Statistics.
Our Mutual Journey: A Century to Celebrate, Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company.
Obituaries and burial transcriptions, Manitoba Genealogical Society.
We thank Lori Wakelam for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 14 June 2020
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